A few months ago, our local paper dropped Gil Thorp from the Monday-Saturday comics page. After its replacement (Todd the Dinosaur) sucked epically, they tossed that and, purportedly in an effort to balance out any liberal bias from the Boondocks, added Mallard Fillmore.

Now, the sight of the names "Bruce" or "Tinsley" makes me homicidal.

They've received tons of complaints about just how un-funny the strip is (some of the rational ones suggest moving it to the editorial page if it HAS to be in the paper), as evidenced by the many letters to the editor about Mallard Fillmore. My problem with it is that he tries to do topical humor, but just isn't funny. Not only that, but his politics reside somewhere between Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting (after getting dumped by his paper, Tinsley found refuge at the Washington Times) and he isn't shy about clubbing you over the head with them. There's been maybe two days where his strip didn't annoy the piss out of me (at best).

So if they have to have a conservative strip in there, let's have a funny one. Anyone know of good strips? (They already run Tank McNamara in the sports section, so that's out.)

Originally posted by LionJeetSinghI believe he asked for a funny conservative strip. That was god-awful.

Trust me: That was BETTER than Mallard Fillmore. -_-

Really? Ouch. The Day by Day stuff would work if the characters themselves were funny. But they're not. And they don't seem to do anything in the office that's funny. So all you're left with is - "Boy, those liberals sure are stupid!" in almost every strip. And none of the "stupid liberal stuff" is made to be funny either, they just seem to run with it "as is". Maybe that's funny for a news junkie, but not to me.

Michael Moore being a ham stuffed puppet strapping bombs to himself and blowing up Team America HQ? Amusing.

Michael Moore writing a letter to Team America HQ asking them to cease and desist? Not funny. Day by Day seems to take this approach.

I've heard good things about Prickly City (http://www.ucomics.com/pricklycity/), but I admit I haven't seen much of it -- so if it sucks as hard as MF and Day by Day, I reserve the right to disavow all blame.

About Prickly City A small town in the American Southwest... everything in the desert is designed to prick you, wound you or eat you. What better metaphor for 21st century Earth? PRICKLY CITY is a comic strip about the friendship between Winslow, a coyote pup, and Carmen, a straight and narrow kind of kid. PRICKLY CITY offers a conservative perspective on political and social events within an ongoing storyline. As Carmen might say, "We may not be correct but we will always be right."

Scott Stantis is also an editorial cartoonist, and what I've seen of his work puts him in the Republican camp.

I know, it's kinda disorienting seeing a conservative who can actually make fun of his own side as well ... but then, I guess that's what makes this strip better than MF.

Mallard Fillmore isn't that bad (for those of you who may not know me from Politics, I'm a big lefty) - I'll chuckle once in a while. The WORST is "State of the Union." The most unfunny thing I've ever seen.

The main deal with "Conservative" comic strips is that they forget the "comic" part. The liberal strips (Boondocks, or even Doonsebury) are first and foremost comic strips. I mean, the Boondocks will go a month just making fun of how old-school the grandpa is. There's different characters with different quirks and personalities and points of view. Current Event and Political humor is all done in the context of these characters, which is what makes it funny.

With the Conservative strips, there's none of this - the closest thing is probably "B.C." It's just "Let's ridicule Liberals" - and usually just in a stereotypical, not really clever way. Mallard Fillmore is sometimes funny doing this, but there's only so much legs this kind of humor has.

Also, the liberal strips will occasionally make fun of Liberals - or at least other types of liberals. They have a much better sence of humor about themselves.

It kind of the same way the Cons responded to the "liberal" media. Instead of making an alternative media with the twist being it's from a conservative point of view, they made a conservative point of view in the format of a TV and Radio channel. Same with the comic strips - it's not a comic strip from a conservative point of view, it's a conservative point of view in the format of a comic strip.

There's no doubt that "State of the Union" is bad, but the worst thing out there is definitely "Tom Tomorrow". I've never seen one that even produced so much as a grin, let alone a chuckle or a laugh.

I both agree and disagree with Moe's thesis about "Conservative" strips. Many of them have forgotten the comic part of the equation, but that's a response to what's currently out there. In my view, Trudeau shifted from being a political cartoonist to a POLITICAL cartoonist about 8 to 10 years ago and became much less funny in the process. Aaron McGruder has decided to be an "edgy" and sometimes racist Jim Davis and go for the easy and obvious punchlines and his work has really suffered for that decision. He sometimes produces a funny strip, like this Sunday's strip that I think Whitebacon is using as a sig, but his ratio of funny to unfunny isn't real good. Along those lines, it's hard for me to think of any consistently funny political cartoonists currently working on either side of the political aisle.

On the other hand, some of the more conservative cartoonists, particularly Chris Muir, have moved in a somewhat different direction that focuses on the immediate. One of the reasons that I like "Day by Day" so much is that it is unapologetic in it's requirement that you be both a news and a blog junkie in order to get the comics. If you aren't a news and blog junkie, it really doesn't work. Along those lines, I can't ever see it as a successful newspaper strip because of it's reliance on being immediately topical rather than behind the curve like newspaper strips have to be.

Unfortunately, Moe is right about what a lot of the other conservative cartoonists are doing as they rely on cheap stereotypes and talking points to try and produce humor. For me, "Mallard Fillmore" has about the same ratio of funny to unfunny as "Boondocks", and that's not a good thing for "Mallard Fillmore" when you consider that it comes a lot closer to my personal political viewpoints.